Samuel Lange Zambrano, Samantha Castillo, Beto Benites

"Junior is nine years old and has stubbornly curly hair, or “bad hair.” He wants to have it straightened for his yearbook picture, like a fashionable pop singer with long, ironed hair. This puts him at odds with his mother Marta, a young, unemployed widow. Marta, Junior and the baby brother live in a large multi-family building.

Marta, overwhelmed by what it takes to survive in the chaotic city of Caracas, finds it increasingly difficult to tolerate Junior’s fixation with his looks. The more Junior tries to look sharp and make his mother love him, the more she rejects him. His paternal grandmother, a witness to his rejection, asks Marta to give her the boy so that he can look after her. Marta refuses and tries to correct her son’s obsession by “setting an example,” a cruel moment which was meant to be a lesson. Junior finds himself cornered, face to face with a painful decision."